I knew that Bitcoin mining was unsustainable due to the amount of electricity that it used; what I had not realized is that the same criticism can be levelled due to the amount of water used in the same process:   "Bitcoin-mining operations slurp up billions of gallons of water globally each year.  Estimates vary, but the annual footprint is projected to surpass 591 billion gallons of water this year, according to an article published last week in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Reports Sustainability."   How much is 591 billion gallons of water? &n ..read more

A picture can tell a thousand words – specifically, a graph from the article in the url below about how BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink, has stopped publicly using the acronym, ESG. Of course, here in the U.S., there is a controversial ideological argument around the acronym. Equally important (and a symptom of that broader discussion) is how investors are voting with their dollars:     Take care David   David Chandler Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation (6e) © Sage Publications, 2023   Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: https://study ..read more

The article in the url below deals with the issue of how to discard the detritus of the renewable energy sector. Specifically, it notes that there is a large amount of hardware that is required to produce wind energy, which is rapidly reaching the end of its lifespan – particularly the blades from the turbines that were installed in the early 2000s: "By 2025, trade association WindEurope estimates that 25,000 metric tons of wind turbine blades will be phased out each year in Europe alone, equivalent to the weight of more than 6,000 Hummer SUVs." Unfortunately, most of the blades that were i ..read more

No doubt there is more to the story in the url below, but I was encouraged by this development: "For the first time in more than 50 years the US granted permission for a new type of nuclear reactor, a sign regulators are becoming more open to different approaches to producing power from splitting the atom." What is unique about this new reactor design, it appears, is the cooling technology: "California startup Kairos Power received a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build its Hermes demonstration reactor in Tennessee. While commerc ..read more

The "gas tax" in the U.S. is money raised both by the federal government and individual states (separate taxes) and used to invest in the national road system. It is one of the most effective taxes because it is targeted and, at the federal level, famously has not been raised since the 1993 (for a breakdown of state-by-state taxes, see here). In spite of being so effective, politicians are so afraid to introduce any increase in the overall tax burden that investment has dropped, and the country's infrastructure has suffered. The article in the url below argues this situation is about to get w ..read more

The author in the article in the url below sets up his argument by noting the geopolitical role played by fossil fuels since their emergence as the dominant energy source. While solving the nasty side-effect of direct carbon emissions, he argues that renewable energy might be introducing an alternative source of "commodity dependence and geopolitical baggage":   "Wind, sun and hydrogen are free. But the equipment that transforms them into energy, stores it in batteries and transmits it needs vast quantities of minerals whose supply is more concentrated than that of oil and gas. Demo ..read more

The article in the url below suggests the message that fast fashion is increasingly a hard sell for some consumers (due to the huge amount of associated waste) is beginning to make progress:   "Fast-fashion retailers including H&M, Uniqlo and Zara have for years enticed shoppers to buy more and more new clothes. Now these brands are pushing consumers to repair their old ones, too."   More specifically:   "Zara this year is launching nationwide repair services in several of its largest markets, Uniqlo is adding repair studios to a number of stores, and H&M-owned Cos is w ..read more

The article in the url below contains a headline that I don't see very often:   "Bank of America Pledged to Stop Financing Coal. Now It's Backtracking."   What strikes me about it that is different is not that companies are not taking climate change seriously or that they are saying one thing and then doing the opposite (both of which have always been true), but that they feel comfortable saying so, so directly. In other words, backtracking like this is exposed by the media, all the time, but it is rare to see the company announce its own backtrack:   "Two years ago, Bank of Am ..read more

This graph from the article in the url below, for me, sums up the challenge inherent in many renewable energies: The chart shows a single day (October 11, 2020) and plots demand for electricity in South Australia against the amount of electricity generated by solar power. Of course, this issue would not matter so much if we could adequately store solar energy and transport it over long distances. Since we haven't solved those challenges, we need to use solar energy as we create it, but that might not be when it is in most demand, as the chart demonstrates. No doubt, the challenge of repla ..read more

I thought Bloomberg's summary of the agreement reached at COP 28, last December, was telling. First, the good news (with an essential qualification, right at the end, my emphasis): "The latest UN climate summit ended with an announcement that nations have committed to transitioning away from all fossil fuels. … The deal calls for countries to quickly shift energy systems away from fossil fuels in a just and orderly fashion, albeit in a non-binding deal." Then, quickly followed by the reality check: "The history of adherence to such pledges is spotty at best. After a ple ..read more